My son is having to put a new motor in his car, because the “forgot” to put oil in after draining the old out. We’re having to go to a lawyer.
Say, your last name ain’t Walton, is it?
I’ve been to seven Wal-Marts. (Care for me to name them? They were in York, PA; Lewisburg, PA; Dubois, PA; Clearfield, PA; Springville, NY; Niagara Falls, NY; and Torrance, CA.) They were all dingy, dirty and badly-lit. I’ve been to several other big-box supercenters which were cleaner. Hell, you could even find a clean K-Mart, right up to the point K-Mart hit Chapter 11.
Tell me, what have you got with Wal-Mart. Spill, Your Majesty.
Some people seem to forget one point. Lower costs (i.e. Walmart) means lower cost of living. Lower cost of living means that you don’t need as much profit to live comfortably.
Which means we could end up back where a Snickers costs a nickle, and an ice cream costs a dime. The change in your cusions could get you a burger and a coke. All thanks to Walmart. 
I’ve never seen a ketchup packet lay on the floor at McDonalds for so long that it’s been stepped on and rolled over by carts, and ketchup’s been tracked on feet and wheels for 15 feet in all directions and left there for so long it’s dried out and turned black from other dirt sticking to it.
I’ve seen crap like that lots of times at Wal Mart. Every one I’ve been to (be it California, Connecticut, Ilinois or North Carolina) has been unkempt and uninviting.
Even though they sell such implements, the staff at Wal Mart seems to have no idea what a broom or mop is. Looking at the shelves, “recovery” (putting things back where they belong after they’ve been dropped or abandoned by shoppers) appears to be a foreign concept as well. At McDonalds, one of Ray Kroc’s tenets is successfully beaten into everyone and carried out all day long: Clean As You Go. Sure, not every McDonalds store is spotless every minute of the day, but overall, they’re ahead of the pack. “Clean” is part of the McDonalds corporate culture, and it’s sorely lacking from Wal Mart’s.
I’m not at all unhappy to be 50 miles away from the nearest Wal Mart now.
Moving this to the BBQ Pit.
I’m just a casual customer that’s tired of everyone thinking they’re too good to shop there. I’ve been to the York Wal Mart and found it to be just fine, thank you.
P.S. Go Terps
I certainly don’t believe that I’m too good to shop there. I simply choose not to.
As a small business owner for the last 30 years, I see a trend in American consumers that is disturbing at best. Long lost are the days that you would patronize a business because you got a fair product for a fair price. Good service and clean stores are just not important any more. We want stuff fast and cheap. Instant gratification is more important than quality.
Because I’m a small business owner, I am certainly more in tune with the plight of small business in America. I do not, however, believe that “big business” is evil as you’ve inferred. Big and small businesses alike are what makes our economy survive.
Some seem to believe that because they’re the biggest, they’re the largest target. I believe that they are the largest target because of how they became the biggest.
Once any business has to resort to questionable or unethical tactics to stay afloat, it’s time to no longer be in business. I’ll concede that it takes two to tango and Vlasic and Huffy had a choice to not contract with Walmart.
As the consumer, I have the power. The power of my wallet and I choose to not shop there.
Going a bit off-topic, but:
I never realized that so many people shopped at Wal-Mart. I have never been inside one.
This simply says to me that the company in your example cannot market it’s products. Walmart does play hardball, I grant you. And it has seemingly taken advantage of companies that are on the verge of going under. Like Levi’s. But it wasn’t Walmart that put those companies in the position of needing Walmart in order to stay afloat a little while longer.
I cringe when someone ssays that Walmart is forcing it’s suppliers to send jobs overseas. These companies send jobs overseas because they can. Do you think that if Walmart goes under, these companies are going to bring those jobs back?? Do you believe that sending jobs overseas was something they never would have considered were it not for Walmart?? Companies send jobs overseas because they think it makes sense for them to do so, Walmart or no.
I shop at Walmart. I shop at a lot of other places to. I buy where the product I want is at the lowest price and most convenient. IMO, to do otherwise is foolish.
But Walmart doesn’t always have the best price (REALLY, THEY DON’T). And they don’t always have the product I want. Other places do. See, there is competition.
My sister who is handicapped works at a minimum wage job and still lives with my parents because she can’t afford rent on her own. I have a professional job where I make enough to be able to chose to not shop at Wal-mart. Wal-mart, in the past few years here, have put the discount to midlevel retailers out of business. My sister has no choice but to shop at Wal-mart where she can get most of the things she needs on her budget. I would guess 90-95% of her discretionary spending goes to Wal-mart. It’s amazing.
What ever happened to the whole “Made in the USA” thingy?
I remember a great deal about many moons ago, but not much anymore.
Did Wal-Mart say screw it or something?
I’m not quite getting your point.
Are saying that she would have gotten a better deal from the retailers that Walmart “put out of business”?
WalMart intentionally understaffs its stores, and expects its employees to work a bit off the clock. If WM hired enough staff to clean the store and round up the stray items, then they’d have to raise prices, and they won’t do that, figuring that their customers want low prices more than they want clean, well-organized stores with aisles wide enough for two carts to pass each other. From the success, I guess that they’re right. But that doesn’t mean that I will shop there.
I have quit shopping at WalMart. I quit doing grocery shopping at the Super WalMart when I noticed that they have BIRDS living in the store. Not in the pet department, but flying around loose in the store. And apparently they are not interested in taking any steps to remove the birds, either. Yuck. I don’t even want to think about what else is living in that store.
Between the cleanliness, the HR issues, the business tactics, the store layouts (those close aisles), refusal to carry the morning after pill, refusing to carry certain music unless it’s been bowdlerized, and the fact that WM will only carry “bestseller” books, computer games, etc. (thus almost guaranteeing that they won’t have what I want) I won’t shop at WalMart. Even one or two of those factors would be enough to make me hesitant to shop there, though I might stop in if it’s on the way to some other errand. But combine those reasons, and WalMart has lost me as a customer for ANY purchases.
King Friday, I am too good to shop there. That’s just one of I suspect many lifestyle choices that makes me better than you. However, don’t despair… you do have a purpose in life. If ever I need something from Wal-mart I will open my window and call upon filth such as yourself to go fetch it for me. When you return I will toss a few coppers your way for your troubles if you don’t display too much insolence. Most do and get a thrashing from my large butler instead.
Alas, I think my gentle speech is wasted on the coarser shopping classes.
I have seen birds in grocery stores other than Wal-Mart. I have been told more than once that they come in through the large open doors of the loading dock area, and when they get out into the main store with the noise and the fluorescence and lack of sky or natural light, they get confused and don’t know how to get back outside. Unfortunately, trying to catch them generally results in injured employees (who aren’t trained in avian retreival, certainly) and injured or dead birds, and when they’re injured they still aren’t always caught or out of the store. I’m not sure how a store can avoid the problem, short of bringing all their shipments into the store through man-sized doors on dollys, which isn’t time or cost effective.
I shop at local markets and local retailers, but I also shop at Wal-Mart and there are certain items (pet food, cleaning products, soda, cereal) that I always buy there because it’s simply the most cost effective choice for my family. Perhaps it’s because I tend to shop when I tend to post to the SDMB – late at night – that I never noticed stores which were dimly lit or dirty. I’m frequently unable to get down aisles on my first try because that’s when (at the 24-hour stores) they mop and use a big machine (looks like a mini zamboni) to vacuum, clean and polish the floors. I asked why they did this at night, when aisles are also often blocked by stockers; I was told that it was because the store is too crowded during the day. The supercenter where I shop doesn’t have crowded aisles (unless the stockers are on duty) or items strewn about haphazardly. Maybe it’s the white-bread suburbia where I shop?
A little off topic:
I work at a Wegman’s. I also used to worked for Walmart. Wegman’s is a much better company to work for.
I highly doubt this is because of Starbucks. Starbucks tends to increase coffee business in an area for independent owners, not decrease it. (I did say tends, though).
In this article about a Starbucks opening up in the Triangle area of Chapel Hill, the owner of Caribou Coffee states:
Which falls in line with a Wall Street Journal article I read several months ago that showed a tendency for business to increase at independent shops if a Starbucks opened up nearby. In fact, if you’re opening up your own coffee shop, one of the best places to open it is right next to a busy Starbucks (again, generally speaking). You’ll get a client base who is expecting fancier coffee, don’t mind paying a premium and will likely appreciate the atmosphere. And you’ll get runoff from people right off the bat who don’t feel like waiting in the long Starbucks line and are willing to give your place a shot.
If there aren’t any mom and pop coffees shops left in Orlando, it’s probably not the fault of Starbucks.
Incidentally, the article also mentioned that the coffeeshop market is only at about 40% saturation, so if you’re looking into owning your own business, there’s the place to look.
I’m also surprised just how many people shop at Walmarts!
Since I hate long lines with a passion I hate buying from Walmart and almost never bother. My grocery store of choice for instance is Dominon which is very pricey but I’d rather do my shopping at 2 am with no lines than wait until Food Basics opens to save $5 or even $50 on my groceries (and buying bags seems, I don’t know, wrong).
I think Walmart is a good concept (get everything you ever want under one roof) but because of their practices in understaffing, I don’t bother. I’ll shop at the super loblaws before I go to Walmart (Loblaws is another pricy grocery store but isn’t open 24/7).
The only good thing I can say about WalMart is that I never feel more attractive, suave and desireable as when I’m in one of those wretched pits of despair. I generally don’t consider myself to be attractive, or anything but painfully average, but compared to the mass of clientele and staff in those awful places, I feel like Don Juan. Does that make me a snob? I sure hope so.
Whatever your reasons for liking or disliking the chain, there are a few general truths: the stores are crowded, ridiculously huge, cramped even for that ridiculous hugeness, dirty, and staffed by morons, and understaffed at that. Someone else made that point already: why have 800 cash lanes if only 4 are ever open. Even if I wanted to go WalMart for the so-called convenience, it wouldn’t work because I would have to wait half an hour or more in line. And in that time some idiot in front of me is going to be confused about the extremely difficult “pay the price as listed on the item” concept, possibly delaying me further. I’ve never gotten through a WalMart in less than half an hour, whereas I can go to the Home Hardware around the corner and be in and out in 5 minutes. And it’s small, old, family-owned and run, cramped, and yet clean and has everything I could ever need (hardware-wise).
Add to that the cult-like mentality they attempt to instil in their staff and it makes for certain that I won’t go there. Many years ago, I applied to work at a WalMart, and after the indoctrination video I was starting to get worried that I’d wandered into a cult service. They went on about morning cheers, and the WalMart attitude, and it basically came out that if you were capable of independent thought, you weren’t qualified to work there. Now, when you tack on their ignorant small-mindedness with choosing not to stock some books, games or music CDs because the small minds that shop there might be offended, it just makes the case for where to shop a no-brainer: NOT WALMART.
You really think that you can stick your nose up in the air because you don’t like the Mart? You really think that that’s going to make you a better person? Wow. After that zinger, I’m afraid to ask what other lifestyle choices you’ve made to make you better than me. Let me guess…did someone tell you that creamy peanut butter is gay so you only eat chunky Peter Pan, and now you think that makes you a better person?